Guiding Hypertension Management Using Different Blood Pressure Monitoring Strategies

The traditional BP used for clinical practice, the office BP, is usually measured in a busy and hurry clinical environment, and interfered by the well-known confounding whitecoat effect. As such, unattended automated office BP monitoring (uAOBP) has been proposed as an effective solution and further promoted by Canadian physicians. Nonetheless, out-of-office BP, home BP and ambulatory BP, remains the methodology of recommendation for the detection of whitecoat effect, and its prognostic value has been demonstrated to be superior to the traditional office BP. Home BP monitoring, with its ability to detect morning and masked hypertension and a better tolerability than ambulatory BP monitoring for long-term use, can therefore be considered as a strategy of choice to replace office BP monitoring for guiding hypertension management. Moreover, BP measurements in the peripheral arteries cannot serve as direct substitutes for their central counterparts because of the long-recognized differences of blood pressure (BP) waveforms and values between the central aorta and peripheral arterial system. Thus, if the decisions on medication adjustment are made solely based brachial BP, there could be a considerable risk of over- or undertreatment. Considering that there are many better strategies for guiding hypertension management than traditional office BP, there is an apparent need for investigating their comparative effectiveness and safety in the management of hypertension. The investigators hypothesized that home BP may be non-inferior to AOBP and central BP-guided intervention in reducing ambulatory BP and designed the present randomized controlled trial.